The Game Boys

Programmers sleep under their desks as Sony races to update its bestselling driving game in a cave-like Tokyo bullpen.

Yamauchi says he never intended Gran Turismo to appeal to a mass audience. He believed that only a real otaku, or hobby fanatic, would take the time to explore its many nooks and crannies. Indeed, the first version was altered for the U.S. market to make it more accessible. Taku Imasaki, now a Los Angeles-based producer with Sony Computer Entertainment, tweaked the game for American buyers by speeding it up 25 percent and changing the gravity so cars flew longer. He thought Americans would lose interest in the methodical ladder climbing of the role-playing process, so he added an instant-play option that let gamers jump right into the fastest cars on the hardest tracks.

Imasaki's changes didn't win him many friends at Polyphony. Despite some grumbling in the gaming world that the Japanese-home-market version was better, U.S. sales were healthy and comprised much of the game's initial run of 10.9 million copies, a fact that Imasaki chalks up to the simulation's core attributes rather than the changes. When Gran Turismo 2 came out, Sony left it unchanged for the U.S. market. Gran Turismo 3, which debuted in 2001, racked up almost 15 million sales, the current record for the franchise.

As Polyphony sprints to finish GT5, head game boy Yamauchi seems undaunted by the pressure from sweating Sony execs to deliver his latest opus. The electronics giant has no choice but to abide by Yamauchi's artistic penchants and picayune love of minutiae, says Newsweek's Croal, even if it pushes Gran Turismo 5's release date to the end of 2008 or beyond.